With the rapid approach of the end of his professional life, Marcus O is quietly wondering what's next. Well first there's a workplace nemesis he aspires to humiliate. And then there's a style-conscious student whose shallow interests seem calculated to aggravate Marcus alone. And finally there are the nights scouring the web and composing attractive answers to profile questions generated by a seniors' online dating site he's recently joined. Set in a near future where everything is pretty much the same--or maybe a touch worse--Oldness; or The Last Ditch Efforts of Marcus O presents a satiric portrait of a contradictory man in a complicated place and time whose reality may be just over the horizon.

Brett Josef Grubisic is the author of the novel The Age of Cities, published in 2006 and a finalist for the City of Vancouver Book Award, as well as co-author of American Hunks, editor of Contra/Diction: New Queer Male Fiction and co-editor (with Carellin Brooks) of Carnal Nation: Brave New Sex Fictions. He teaches English at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.